音樂是流動的建築，建築是凝固的音樂

Best architects 16

Best architects 16 – Sustainable architecture and experiments in a sustainable lifestyle Award-winning work of Einszueins architecture office in Vienna

To many people in the West, feng shui seems to be a complicated set of rules for living in the East. But simplifying feng shui a bit, it is the way to make your living environment comfortable: sunlight, air and water. How to make the environment (home) comfortable for people to live in? How to keep a nice environment for the next generation? Some architects think about how to make architecture and the people living inside it coexist with the same vision. The work of Einszueins architecture office is a great sustainable example.

A short note about the award-winning work:

Spatial allocation: 40 housing units in a residential establishment (36-137m2), 500m2 for common rooms, 400m2 for commercial area

Period of planning: 2010-2013

Completion of the building: December 2013

Baugruppe (Cohousing, a group of people with a shared vision designs, builds and lives together): association of sustainable living, which includes 67 adults and 25 children

Planning and participating architects: Einszueins architecture office

Park and school area next to the site (用地旁的公園及校園)

There is a huge area of former train station in Vienna’s second district, which has been designated as a new city planning zone. By 2025 about 10,000 new residential units and 20,000 new jobs will be created there. In 2013 this eight-floor residential establishment with 40 units was created in this area. The location is great, next to the public transport system and near a park. They have a slogan: “Let’s live together!” This is not just a normal apartment building, but a self-organised and self-managing association, which thinks about sustainability and commits to a sustainable lifestyle. This design project manages to bring different generations, languages, cultures and professions all together under one roof (literally). This is a new Viennese lifestyle: affection towards each other, no dogma, open-minded to new things and people. The way it works here with the neighbours feels like living in a vertical village. In a big city of individuals, it seems to be an alien.

Baugruppe has become something of a trend in Vienna since 2010. This kind of group has a vision: create a new path in the name of sustainability. As regards the construction itself, this includes:

+ all members join the planning process

+ extensive common rooms

+ use of harmless building materials that save resources

+ low-energy standard

+ combination of living and working under one roof

There are also other aspects of sustainable life:

+ (6) electric car sharing system

+ Local exchange trading system (voluntary service exchange, for instance a member maintains the association’s website for an hour, another member cooks for an hour so that other members can pay a little amount to share meals in the common kitchen. Every voluntary service – based only on time – has the same value!)

+ Weekend market on the plaza in front of the establishment

+ City gardening area

+ Environmental way of consuming, for instance foodcoop. Some members are responsible for buying organic fruit and vegetables from local farms for the whole association.

+ Most of the residents use bicycles. That is why 116 bicycle parking places are planned on the ground floor.

This master plan can also convince other people to try this approach, and this is why Einszueins architecture office received the Vienna City Environmental Award in 2012.

This building supports the group functions but also does not ignore individual characters. Its contractual system allows individual planning within every unit. That is why 40 different units can be very flexible to adapt the individual needs. The stairwell is in the middle of the building to increase communication between neighbours. The central part of this project is the extensive common rooms, for example the common kitchen, multifunctional room, kids’ playroom, workshop and music room. The penthouse area belongs to everybody, with great facilities like sauna, library, roof garden, guest rooms (at the moment voluntarily offered to, and used by, two refugees families) and meditation area. The commercial area on the ground floor allows members to work downstairs and vitalises the neighbourhood. You can find a small grocery there, and the Einszueins architecture office.

In 2015 Einzueins architecture office received the Austrian National Prize for Architecture and Sustainability 2014. Using various sustainable measures is becoming a model for many architects. The inside of the building is a solid structure, with a facade of larch wood. Due to the low-energy standard, a controllable central air regulation is in use. Part of the electricity comes from photovoltaics, hot water is supplied by community heating, the flats have underfloor heating, and geothermal heat is also used here.

Self-organisation and making decisions together are the common living principles of a Baugruppe. The organisation’s structure is based on sociocracy. Everybody is equal, and it works in a professional way. This is the reason why every member must pass various interviews to join this association for this sustainable project. This kind of experimental way of living together can only work when everybody has the same vision, agreement and commitment.

Globalisation means that many people don’t live and work in the place where their family members live or near their old friends who they grew up with. Very often people can only rely on their neighbours or get help from them, not from their own family. Can architecture change people’s lifestyle? Or another way round?

Can this sustainable architectural project and the courage to choose this kind of experimental sustainable lifestyle give you a bit of stimulation?